


sing the body electric

by KDblack



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Crisis Core Era (Compilation of FFVII), Gen, Sane Sephiroth (Compilation of FFVII), but not for much longer, ficlets written right before disaster, jenova is kinda there too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28039851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack
Summary: Project S was an unparalleled success. Sephiroth is a SOLDIER among SOLDIERs, a warrior without equal. He’s never lost. He’s never failed. But somehow, everything he cherishes ends up slipping through his fingers.
Relationships: Angeal Hewley & Genesis Rhapsodos & Sephiroth, Hojo & Sephiroth (Compilation of FFVII), Zack Fair & Sephiroth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	sing the body electric

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just gotta write bio-engineered alien supersoldier angst.

Somewhere in the labs, there’s a receipt for Project S, meticulously filed for the next company-wide audit. Payments made for services rendered. All that Sephiroth is summed up in an expense report, fully reimbursed. He found it once, when he was younger – after he became useful enough to be allowed out of his cell, before the Wutai War gave him the leverage to do what he wanted. What a pity he could never quite figure out what he wanted to do. He held that slip of yellowed paper with fingers white as bone, read over the numbers and the signature with his greenish cat’s eyes, and told no one. Try as he might, he can never put the feeling he got from holding the proof of his existence into words.

Project S was an unparalleled success. Sephiroth is a SOLDIER among SOLDIERs, a warrior without equal. He’s never lost. He’s never failed. But somehow, everything he cherishes ends up slipping through his fingers.

There is a pull in the back of his skull, down by the brain stem, where higher thought gives way to base instincts. A subtle drag that he’s done his best to ignore. He’s gotten very good at distracting himself over the years: first with observing his surroundings, then with Angeal and Genesis, and finally with his responsibilities to Shinra and SOLDIER. But SOLDIER is crumbling beneath him, his first and only friends are dead, and he has precious few distractions left.

Is it still a failure if the only one who gave him the objective was himself?

 _Yes_ , says Professor Hojo with each new round of tests, each new round of proposed experimentation, each new attempt to make Sephiroth not just loyal but subservient. 

_Yes_ , says the absence of young Rufus Shinra, who played the game with more skill than anyone and still vanished.

 _Yes_ , screams Zack Fair in a cracked, broken voice, the light in his eyes quenched like it was never there at all.

Sephiroth agrees with them. He is the standard all others are held to, especially himself, and he is a failure. He is a SOLDIER among SOLDIERs, the last pillar of an increasingly desperate department, and that isn’t enough to save him. Broken things can be repaired or recycled, but useless things no longer have any purpose.

 _West_ , whispers the echo of something that could almost be called a voice. The tug at the back of his skull grows stronger. _To the reactor. To Nibelheim._

He follows it because he doesn’t know where else to go.


End file.
